


Handcuffs

by cinnamon_skull



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Drinking Games, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:18:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5578222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_skull/pseuds/cinnamon_skull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim wakes up handcuffed to Jason with no memory of the previous night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GeneratorCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeneratorCat/gifts).



> Tumblr prompt from the ever-lovely and amazing Generatorcat! Original prompt:  
> Tim and Jason waking up handcuffed together, the key lost along with their clothes and memories of the night before. The handcuffs are Special and cannot be picked, and the boys are forced to go to the manor for help, to the amusement of the family.

_Beep, beep, beep._

Tim’s eyes fluttered open. A smooth, familiar white ceiling hung over his head.

His throat was dry in a way that told him he’d spent the previous night drinking a regrettable amount.

But what else would be expected at Bruce Wayne’s birthday party?

_Beep, beep, beep._

He lifted his head off the pillow and glanced out the window to spy a moving truck backing up into a driveway across the street.

It was hard to tell what the time was with the sky being so gray—not that it mattered. He could probably get in another half hour of sleep before he had to meet up with Steph.

He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of muffled voices for a while, letting the gentle noises lull him back into a relaxed state. When he lifted his left hand to scratch an itch on his face, there was something heavy weighing it down. He tried to yank his arm free, but he was met with a sharp, cutting pain at his wrist that made him gasp.

He turned over to identify the problem and then promptly wished he hadn’t.

A body lay directly next to him in bed. From the size and shape and feint smell of old smoke he’d only just picked up on, he had a pretty good idea of whom it might be.

“Jason?” he asked as dread began to settle heavy at the pit of his stomach. But there was no mistaking the white fringe that curled onto Jason’s forehead.

“Tim,” Jason said in a voice that didn’t sound like he’d just woken up. It sounded like he’d been conscious for a while.

 _Waiting and thinking_ , Tim thought, his belly clenching again. Never a good combination for Jason, even under the best of circumstances.

“What is—why are we—,” Tim couldn’t find it in him to say the words.

“You don’t even know yet, do you?” Jason asked, turning his steely blue eyes on Tim.

He swallowed. “Know what?”

There was a sharp tug, and Tim’s attention was drawn down to his wrist. Between them on the bed, a pair of shiny handcuffs attached his left wrist to Jason’s right.

The sight was almost more shocking than finding himself in bed with Jason. _Almost._ “Why are we handcuffed together?” 

“Wish I knew, Timmy,” Jason shrugged.

Tim tried to stem his rising panic by retracing his steps—he was sure there was a reasonable explanation for everything. He focused on the blurry events of last night. “I remember Bruce’s birthday party.”

Jason let out a death rattle of a laugh. “He never did show up, did he?”

“To be fair, he did tell us that for his birthday he didn’t want a party,” Tim felt inclined to point out. “I think we all knew he wouldn’t.”

“But Robins never turn down an opportunity to commiserate,” Jason conceded. “Especially with the promise of free liquor.”

Tim flashed his teeth at Jason. “It’s always free if you do it right.” The teasing words were out before he could stop himself.

In the dim light, Tim watched Jason’s eyes flicker down his torso, lingering on where the sheets pooled around his hips, and then back up to face. “I don’t doubt it, babybird.”

Tim felt the back of his neck heat up. Someone was playing an awful, awful trick on him, and he intended to make them pay—erm, as soon as he was uncuffed.

“You look a little tense there, Timmy,” Jason observed, leaning into Tim’s personal space. “Wanna go for round two?”

“I want to get out of these cuffs,” Tim said primly, ignoring Jason’s offer. They couldn’t have had sex—Tim would definitely remember sex with Jason. He’d only be pining after the man (and hating himself for it) for going on a year now.

And that was a dangerous line of thought lying so close next to Jason, so he pulled his wrist up to study the handcuffs. Jason didn’t put up any resistance.

“Do you have a kit?” Tim asked.

“Sure,” Jason said, his voice pure amusement. “In the pocket of my pants over there.”

Tim whipped his head around to peak over the edge of the bed. Sure enough, Jason’s leather jacket and pants lay in a messy pile in the doorway. His own attire was not far away.

A terrible thought occurred to him suddenly. He’d be embarrassed at his own stupidity if he wasn’t currently freaking out over the state of his dress—or lack thereof, as the case might be.

He reached a hand under the sheets and was relieved to find that he was still wearing boxers. A quick glance at Jason revealed that he wasn’t completely naked either.

“Tim, I can hear you thinking from here,” Jason said. “And I don’t think a kit is going to help us. These are B’s special cuffs:  _un-pickable_.”

Tim’s phone started ringing on the nightstand, saving him from responding further.

“Steph,” Tim said quietly. “Where are you?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Romeo?” Steph asked in a playful tone, and he could practically see her raised eyebrow through the screen.

The headache that had been threatening to break all morning came out in full force. Tim rubbed his temple. “What?”

Steph sighed. “Is this how it’s going to be, Tim?”

Tim glanced at Jason, who was lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. No doubt he was listening to every word.

“Listen, I need your help,” Tim pleaded, cuffing his mouth and talking low. “Can you meet me at the manor in twenty minutes? I have a…situation.”

“Just tell her you had a night of wild sex and need help with handcuffs,” Jason said loudly, leaning closer to Tim. “Nothing to be ashamed of, babybird, it happens to the best of us.”

 _“Shh!”_ Tim said, elbowing Jason hard enough to make him cough. _We didn’t have sex_ , he almost added. But that little detail remained painfully up in the air.

“Tim,” Steph said. “Is that Jason? What did he say about handcu--”

“Just be at the manor in twenty, _please_ ,” Tim pleaded and then hung up the phone before she could respond.

“What’s wrong with you?” Tim hissed. “We didn’t— _nothing_ happened last night.”

Jason shrugged his shoulders, a wicked grin playing at his lips. “If you say.”

Tim groaned.

He’d be lying if he said the thought of Jason handcuffed in his bed had never crossed his mind.

But this wasn’t exactly the situation he’d fantasized about.

 

 


	2. Middles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason and Tim try to figure out what happened -- and get an unexpected audience.

Getting out of bed turned out to be harder than Tim anticipated. Jason was no help – he spread his body out languidly next to Tim, lazily scratching his stomach and watching him from beneath a fan of dark lashes.

“You did hear me tell Steph we were going to meet her in the manor in twenty minutes, right?” Tim snapped, tugging his arm back from where Jason had pulled it near his head.

“Oh, I thought you were being secretive.” Jason cupped his hand over his lips as he said the next part. “Isn’t that what all the whispering was about?”

Tim clenched his fists in the sheets and counted backwards from ten—he only made it to eight. “I know you heard us. Steph’s going to get us out of these stupid handcuffs and then we can forget this ever happened.”

“Hmm,” Jason said, and Tim watched something like a storm cloud pass over his eyes. In a moment it was gone, and he was back to grinning crookedly at Tim. “You’re ruining the afterglow, babe. We’re going to have to work on your pillow talk for next time.”

“Jason,” Tim hissed. “This isn’t a joke.”

“I’m not laughing, babybird.” Jason’s eyes drifted back down to Tim’s hips. “You really don’t remember anything, huh?”

There was a teasing lit to Jason’s voice that made it lower than normal, more intimate. _Dangerous,_ Tim thought, listening to the metallic clang of the handcuffs resting between them.

“You know that I don’t,” Tim repeated, shifting away from Jason and trying to awkwardly roll off the bed. But Jason refused to budge, yanking the cuff so that Tim fell back into the mattress after his second attempt.

“That’s too bad, Timmy,” he said. “I can’t get this one thing out of my head. You made this one sound when I—”

Tim’s entire body caught on fire.

“Stop,” he shouted. “We didn’t sleep together Jason. I would _never_ —”

Jason yanked his hand back again, halting Tim before he could finish. “Okay, I get it,” he said coldly, all traces of his earlier playfulness gone. “You’d never willingly touch me.”

Tim frowned. “That’s not—”

“Just shut up.” Jason stared at the ceiling with dead eyes.

Tim bit his lip and looked away. “Look, Jason, I—”

“Save it.” The older man cut him off again, sliding to the edge of the bed. “I just want to get out of these handcuffs, and then we can _forget this ever happened_.”

Tim recognized his own words thrown back in his face. But how could he explain that he actually wanted the exact opposite? How to explain the way his palms got sweaty or that his pulse rose whenever Jason was in the same room as him? What were the right words to convey that the quasi friendship and sometimes partner-in-crime relationship he’d struck up with Jason in the past year meant more to him than he could possibly say?

_He couldn’t._

The bed shifted as Jason stood up, and Tim was left to stumble after him, hyper-aware that he was only wearing a pair of skintight Star Wars boxers.

Damn Steph for convincing him that he looked like “a fine piece of ass” in them on the mall trip she’d dragged him on last weekend. When he tried to argue, Steph had uttered the Academy Award-winning line, “I’d suck your dick if we still did that,” and Tim had bought them just to get her to stop screaming that, and worse, in the men’s dressing room.

Jason dragged him across the room to his pile of clothes, and Tim tried not to look when he bent over to pick up his jeans from the floor. And he tried, _he really tried_ , to forget the way Jason pulled the tight black material over his strong thighs to settle low on his hips, framing the deep vee of his abdominal muscles. Tim forced himself to look away

“Star Wars, huh?” Jason said slyly. “Didn’t peg you for a fan of the dark side. You never were a rule breaker.”

The way he said it, all dark and full of promise, made Tim’s head spin. Images flooded his mind, unbidden, of Jason wearing his leather jacket and looking like the perfect bad boy of Tim’s teenage dreams.

“What can I say?” Tim swallowed, hard. “I guess I have a thing for guys in helmets.”

He busied himself with looking for his own pants, which prevented him from seeing the way his words had obviously affected Jason. They were quiet while they dressed in Tim’s tiny bedroom, like angsty teenagers preparing for the great goodbye.

“Tim,” Jason said suddenly. He turned and held out his crumpled black shirt in one hand. “How do we get these back on?”

“Must have already been off when we put on the handcuffs,” Tim guessed, which really only raised more questions.

Jason raised an eyebrow at him. “Looks like we’re going topless, Timmy,” Jason said. “Lucky us.”

 

 

< // >

 

 

The ride to Wayne Manor had been awkward, to say the least. It was too cold for them to ride shirtless on Jason’s bike, but the older man insisted he be the one to drive. That meant Tim had to crawl over the driver’s seat to get to the passenger side.

“Sometime today, Tim,” Jason griped, and Tim could feel his glare on his back as he awkwardly crab-walked across the stick shift and consul.

“Excuse me,” Tim said without turning his head. “You weren’t in a rush ten minutes ago when you made me stand out in the freezing cold so you could smoke one of your death-sticks.”

Jason snorted but said nothing. Tim was aware how he much look, crawling red-faced over Jason’s leather interior.

When Tim finally settled into his seat, Jason slid in gracefully and started the ignition. “Congratulations, I’m now a thousand years old.”

“And not a day smarter,” Tim added. “Imagine that.”

“Speaking of _imagination_ ,” Jason continued without missing a beat. “Never in my wildest fantasies did I think the word _lightsaber_ could so accurately—”

“Shut up,” Tim groaned into his hands.

“Use your force and make me!” Jason glared playfully over the stick shift.

“It doesn’t work like that!” Tim huffed. “Honestly, have you even seen a Star Wars movie?”

“Nope,” Jason said, making a loud popping sound with his lips. “I’m not a geek like you.”

Despite their situation being awkward and weird, Tim couldn’t stop smiling. He had to admit – it was fun, flirting with Jason like this. It was nice to see him more relaxed than normal, teasing and playful, and Tim didn’t hate the attention, even it was embarrassing. Even if he still had so many questions on what happened the previous night.

After several more terrible pick up lines from a galaxy, far, far away, they finally made it to the Manor.

Tim didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the entire bat clan sprawled out in one of the spacious TV rooms, smirking as they walked in shirtless and handcuffed. Minus Bruce, _thank god_.

“Steph,” Tim said, his heart sinking. “Did you have to call _everyone?_ ”

“What are you so embarrassed about, Timmy?” Jason interrupted, his mood much improved from their fight in bed. “Being a little kinky in the sack is a good thing.”

The flash on Damian’s phone went off then, momentarily blinding Tim and preventing him from responding. He was sure the photo would catch the intense blush he felt burning up his cheeks and down his chest.

All of his Robin training had not prepared him for _this_.

“You guys just get back from filming Magic Mike XXXL?” Dick taunted, his sparkling blues eyes not missing a thing.

“Yeah, Dickie-bird,” Jason said with a sly smile. “Tiny Tim’s not so tiny, if ya know what I mean.”

“Jason,” Tim bit out. “Can you not?”

“Too much information, Todd,” Damian interrupted. “We don’t need details on Drake’s penile tumescence or the corpora cavernosa stemming from the physiological phenomenon of sexual attraction.”

“Not when you make it sound like that.” Jason made a disgusted face at Damian. “Honestly, isn’t Dick 'Casanova' Grayson teaching you anything?”

Damian took a deep, angry breath, but Jason cut him off. “On second thought, don’t answer that.”

“Steph,” Tim repeated. “Can we _please_ just get this over with?”

The blonde in question slid off the couch and made her way over to get a better look. She looked a bit like a predator stalking her prey, and Tim was very, very nervous.

“Hi Steph,” Jason said coolly as she approached. “Make anyone cry today?”

Steph lifted an eyebrow as she appraised him. “Not yet, Todd,” she said sweetly. “But it’s only 11 a.m. and you just got here.”

“Aww, you don’t have to treat me all special-like,” Jason beamed down at her. “Tim get’s jealous when you play favorites.”

“Tim is my favorite,” Steph said automatically. “Hey, did you know I helped him pick out those tight, black—”

“Hey, hey, Steph,” Tim said quickly, placing a quick hand over her mouth, even at the risk of getting bit. “Jason doesn’t want to hear about that.”

“Oh yes, Jason _does_ ,” the other man said with a smirk.

“Steph,” Tim pleaded. By this point, he was as red as his Red Robin suit and five minutes away from chewing off his own arm.

“You’re so uptight, Tim,” Dick cut in. “Honestly, it’s like you didn’t even get laid last night.”

“That’s a disgusting mental image,” Damian gagged. “Please desist immediately.”

Jason and Tim made awkward eye contact and then quickly looked away. Their silence raised a few eyebrows.

“Wait, what?” Steph demanded.

“You guys…didn’t sleep together?” Dick asked.

For the first time, Jason looked as uncomfortable as Tim. And though he wasn’t blushing, his ears had turned and alarming shade of red.

“Jason?” Dick repeated.

“No, we didn’t,” Jason answered finally. He crossed his arms over his chest, dragging Tim’s lifeless hand with him.

“We didn’t?” Tim asked at the same time that Steph said, “You didn’t?”

“We were so drunk,” Jason said. “You especially. Didn’t Steph teach you how to hold your liquor at all?”

“Hey,” Steph said.

Tim ignored her. “But all the stuff you said? About the—” Tim lowered his voice. “The sound? And being naked in bed together?”

“I was joking around, Tim,” Jason said with a straight face. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”

Steph made a noise in the back of her throat. It was the same kind of sound she made when she watched baby animal videos on the batcave computer on slow Saturday nights.

“Steph,” Tim said. “Not now.”

“Get me out of these cuffs,” Jason said. His voice had gone quiet, and Tim knew from experience that Jason was very, very angry. “Dick, I know you have a set of keys.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to—,”

“Get me out of these handcuffs right _now_ ,” Jason threated, “Or I’m going to send a photo of your Disco dick to Vicki Vale for the 5 o’clock news.”

“All right, Jay,” Dick said, grabbing Jason’s wrist and swiftly uncuffing him. “Can’t we just talk about this—”

“I’m done talking,” Jason said as he rubbed his wrist. “I’ve had enough bat bullshit for one day.”

He didn’t glance at Tim as he fled the room.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave some love : ) Follow me @ cinnamonskull or jayskulll on tumblr for more jaytim goodies.

**Author's Note:**

> Next up - Steph meets the boys back at the manor. She might have invited all the batboys too.


End file.
